Colleen Hoover fans have had a mixed reaction to first-look photos of Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni on the set of It Ends With Us.
It was announced in January that Lively and Baldoni had been cast to lead the film adaptation of the author’s popular romance novel.
Gossip Girl star Lively, 35, will feature as 23-year-old Lily Bloom, who has just moved to Boston to begin life after university, opposite Baldoni, 39, who will play her 30-year-old love interest Doctor Ryle Kincaid.
On Monday (15 May), multiple behind-the-scenes pictures were shared on social media depicting Lively in costume, wearing a pink jacket atop a pink shirt and a brown maxi dress.
Reaction to the photos was divided, with some fans stating they were upset with the differences between Lively’s image and what they had envisioned. Some complained that Lively was more than a decade older than the character as described in the book.
“I think most of us were already not thrilled with this casting, but this is kind of confirming the fears,” one TikToker said in a video. “Let me just say that I love Blake Lively – I love her so much – but this is not Lily Bloom.”
Showing additional photos of Lively on set, the fan continued: “Maybe we just need to trust the process, but I kind of just hate that they decided to cast so much older than what the characters in the book were.
“This is just not at all how I would picture Lily and Ryle. I don’t know, we will see, but so far this is not looking that promising.”
In another TikTok video, someone else said they were “at a loss for words”.
“We were already questioning what the movie was going to be like with the casting. Blake’s a great actress, but Lily is supposed to be a young, fresh girl starting her life in Boston,” she argued. “The wig, the outfit, none of this is reading a young girl in her twenties starting life in the big city.”
One Twitter user commented on the photos saying: “I mean Lily wasn’t a fashion icon but this is too much.”
“I read the book and this clearly isn’t what I had in mind,” a second wrote.
Hoover published It Ends With Us in 2016, but it wasn’t until more recently that the book underwent a surge in popularity, in part due to its prominence in TikTok’s literary circles (referred to colloquially as “BookTok”).
